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Data presentation - Detailed description |
Gross domestic product (GDP) and its components, value added by economic activity and employment statistics are part of the ESA 95 annual and quarterly national accounts produced by the European Commission (Eurostat) and national statistical authorities. Euro area results are estimated using information for the individual countries.
GDP is the value of an economy’s total output of goods and services less intermediate consumption, plus net taxes on products and imports. GDP can be broken down by output, expenditure or income components. The main expenditure aggregates that make up GDP are household final consumption, government final consumption, gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories, and imports and exports of goods and services (including intra-euro area trade).
Employment covers employees and the self-employed working in resident production units. Employment data are measured in number of persons in employment and total hours worked; other possible measures for employment are number of jobs and full-time equivalents.
The GDP deflators and unit labour costs and its components (compensation per employee and labour productivity) are calculated by the ECB based on the ESA95 national accounts data.
The GDP deflators are the ratios of the series in current prices and volume series, where the current price series for the countries are adjusted for national exchange rate movements before joining the euro area.
Labour productivity reflects the output that can be produced with a given input of labour. It can be measured in several ways, but is commonly measured as GDP divided by either total employment (by people in employment, i.e. including both employees and self-employed) or total hours worked. The headline ECB measure calculates labour productivity as GDP divided by persons in employment.
Compensation per employee is the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, that is payable by employers to employees in return for work, i.e. gross wages and salaries, as well as bonuses, overtime payments and employers’ social security contributions, divided by the total number of employees.
Unit labour costs are a measure of total labour costs per unit of output calculated as the ratio of compensation per employee to labour productivity (defined as GDP per person employed).
Capital stock data are estimated by the ECB based on available national capital stock data in the ESA 95 framework. The gross capital stock is defined as the value of all fixed assets still in use. Fixed assets are all produced assets that are used repeatedly or continuously in the production process for more than a year. Main assets types are: Metal products, machinery and transport equipment, housing, non-residential construction and other products (including products of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture). It excludes land. Net capital stock is the gross capital, at a point in time, less the consumption of fixed capital accrued up to that point. It takes into account the depreciation of the assets through time as a result of physical deterioration, foreseeable obsolescence or normal accidental damage. |
